Destroying the environment is half of what the military does during wartime. So long as we have militaries, it's hard to see a future where we're not burning cities, bombing bridges and other critical infrastructure, and driving around highly environmentally unfriendly tanks, planes, and warships.

Agree that we should expect more of military and government, but given the fact that a lawsuit was required here and the rampant abuses in the name of national security, we are a long ways off.

It's not binary. It's a trade-off that potentially decreases their capabilities and readiness. We might weigh the calculus differently (fewer dead whales) but it's not as simple as saying they don't care.

> So we must just accept the fact that military is there to destroy environments and they just don't really care?

No, the military is there to win wars. When you're in a fight for your life, you don't much care if you trample on a bush, or even break your own bones.

I think that "of course" is often intended to be descriptive of the way things are, not the way things ought to be.